Travel or transportation services, in particular on-demand cab services, generally balance the demands from customers and supply of vehicles for providing efficient services to the customers. With improvements in lifestyles of the customers and limited available alternatives of public or private transportation options, popularity of the cab services is continuously increasing. With increased demand for the cab services, various cab service-providers have come into the market to provide the cab services to the customers. The cabs are booked either on an individual basis or on a shared basis. On individual basis, a customer or small groups of customers traveling towards the same destination book a vehicle, whereas on shared basis, multiple customers share the vehicle to reach their respective destinations. Generally, the bookings of the vehicles are done using customer and driver devices, such as mobile phones running cab booking applications. The customer requests a service provider for a ride through the mobile application installed on the customer device. The service provider may transfer the request to an appropriate vehicle based on the availability and location of the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle accepts the received request through the mobile application installed on the driver device. The subsequent bookings of the vehicles are performed during an ongoing ride in case of shared rides. This results in presence of cabs on road throughout a day of service and for longer intervals of time.
Generally, vehicles in the transportation industry regularly travel long distances during rides, including passenger and commodity transport. This results in regular wear and tear of the components of the vehicle. If unnoticed, the regular wear and tear of the components may alter the states of the components from ‘good’ to ‘damaged’ or ‘unusable’. The utilization of components in a damaged state for a ride may result in failure of a ride. Further, the components of the vehicle may be modified or replaced with sub-quality replacement components, generally when the vehicle is not under surveillance. This compromises the security of the passengers and the driver, while using the car. Vehicle fuel siphoning, modifying the engine oil by addition of external fluids, and replacing the critical components of the engine with sub-quality components, are some of the examples of such scenarios where the security of the passengers is compromised. Further, there is a possibility of scenarios, such as driver force-logging out from the mobile application in the middle of a ride, deviation of the vehicle from the route map suggested by the mobile application, and the like, where the security of a passenger of the vehicle may get compromised.
One known solution in the art for the above-mentioned problem is continuous monitoring for the presence of components using a vehicle command unit. The vehicle command unit is configured to continuously detect the presence of the components. Such systems are generally configured to run a diagnostic system to detect tampering of the components. One disadvantage of such systems is the lack of online real-time monitoring of the components. Further, such systems test each component of the vehicle. This increases the amount of data and time required to validate the states of components, as each component is to be diagnosed every time a diagnostic test is to be performed. This results in higher time to validate the component states, before allocating the vehicle to a customer. Further, the diagnostic system consumes higher power, as the system tests each component of the vehicle.
In light of the foregoing, there exists a need for a method and system for effective validation of the states of the components of a vehicle. The method and system should consume less time and power, compared to the existing solutions, for validating the states of the components. Further, the method and system should improve the security of a rider by tracking the status of the rider and the vehicle.